84 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[Apeil 1, 1901. 



absn-ant kind of bear, distinguished by its black and 

 whits coloration, ajid the peculiar structure of its teeth. 

 The author now showed that it is really a near relation 

 of the panda {Jilurux fulgcmi), of the Eastern Himalaya, 

 with which it agrees very closely in the structure of the 

 skull and limb-bones. Both animals may now be 

 regarded as members of the, otherwise, American family 

 Procyonidse (raccoons), of which they will form an 

 aberrant group. For the tiue panda the name of. Hima- 

 la>au. 1)1- I iit.'-':iile'l hnmla may Iih Hclo[.ied, while for 

 the other animal the title of great, or short-tailed panda 

 will be appropriate. 



Tht" oniiiu of mammals, as deduced from a study of the 

 occipitil condyles of the skull, forms the snhjeet of an 

 important paper communiciited by Professor H. F. Osl'orn 

 to the American SoturaJisf for December In reptiles the 

 condvle liy which the skull articulates with the vertebral 

 column is sin<r e, a though composed of three elements, 

 whereas in ainphihians and mammals the articulation is 

 formed bv a pair of condyles. Nevertheless, a cording 

 to the author, it is the tripartite reptilian condyle which, 

 by the loss of its mi-diau element, has given rise to the 

 paired mammalian condyles. Hence mammals trace their 

 descent to reptiles. 



WHERE FOUR MOUNTAIN RANGES MEET. 



By E. Walter Maundee, f.e.a.s. 

 The negative from which the accompanying plate is 

 derived was taken by MM. Loewy an i Puiseux at the 

 Paris Observatory, on September i"9th, 1894 To the lett 

 li-'S the deep Mare Serenitatis. w'ose western border is 

 already in eight, and to the right is seen a portion of the 

 Mare Imbrium, the greatest of all the lunar seas. 

 Bordering upon and separating the two lunar seas are the 

 four great mnuntain ranges of Haemus, the Apennines, 

 the Caucasus, and the Alps. The Sea of Cold lies to the 

 north of the Alps, and beyond that again, bordering on 

 the lunar pole is a mountainous region containing many 

 large but little known ringed plains. 



The grazing illumination on the terminator shows up 

 well a chara'-teristic feature of the Mare S-renitatis. 

 This is a ramified welt-like structure, whose main ri'Jges 

 lie roughly along the meridian. The effect on the floor of 

 the sea is like the swollen veins on the temple of an angry 

 man. Oq these ridges the craters, as a rule, seem to lie; 

 thus Bessel is on the crossing of two such ridges, but the 

 effect given is not that the ridges spring or radiate from 

 the craters, but rather that the craters are incidents in the 

 trend of the ridges A crater does not seem to modify 

 the ridge even ia its immediate neighbourhood, nor to 

 alter its course. It is otherwise when the ridge enters 

 the Alpine range, or rather the range of mountains that 

 is manifestly of the same foimatiou as the Alps, which lie 

 to the east of the Caucasus. Here the great ridge, on 

 which Bessel lies, and which can abo be faintly traced 

 south as far as Menelaus, is abruptly transformed into a 

 trench, a long straight even valley cutting through the 

 ruL'ged hi^ihlau'ls. m a direct prolongation of the ridge 

 that lies on the floor of the Sea of Serenity. The Haemus 

 mountains lie too close to the southern edge of the picture 

 for us to trace whether a similar transtormatiou takes 

 place beyond Menelaus, liut other like instances can be 

 traced iu this plate in the Alps — notably a bright rid^e 

 from Egede A, in the Sea of Cold, runs as straight as rule 

 could draw it into the great valley of the Alps. 



Besides the ridge on which lie Bessel aad Menelaus, 

 there is another great system which in the present 

 photograph seems to outline the Mire Ssrenitatis to the 

 west. The sea, however, extends some distance in a still 



more westerly direction, but this portion is in the darkness 

 of after-sunset. 



Although the Mare Imbrium is closely connected with 

 the Mare Serenitatis by the wide and deep pass that 

 divides the Apennines from the Caucasus Mountains, its 

 western portion, which is shown in the photograph, difft-rs 

 in all its characteristic featuies from the deeper sea. It 

 is not only that it contains such huge ringed plains and 

 craters as Archimedes. Autolvcus, Theaetetus, Aristillus 

 and Cassini. the smallest of which is a giant compaed 

 With Bessel. the chief in the ."^ea of Serenity ; l)Ut the 

 influence of these craters on the floor of the sea has been 

 very marked. The floor to the south of Archimedes is 

 rugged and heaped up for a space four or five times the 

 area of the ringed plain itself. From Arist llus broad 

 high ridges extend to the four surrounding craters, and 

 round Autolycus there i.-* a series of brigi;tly illuminated 

 aureoles. 



Like two fortresses, Autolycus on the east and Linne 

 on the west stand guarding the broad deep pass before- 



aPlmiuS 



Bcti-S 



.utolycus^ 



(4£2)Arislillus 



/^Theaetetus 



Atexandec; t J / <i£^/^ 4y^' 



Eudoxe:? r^^ 



a Kirch 



PiaKr Smyth 



G' Protagoras 



rs Mare FrigorIj 

 Archytas 



Cl:r IV.ayeF^ (^y ^ bq^^Jv 



ODrrow 



'=-' ^Qo'ld^chmidl 



mentioned, which divides the Apennines and the 

 Caucasus. Autolycus lies about twice its own diameter 

 fro'u the entrance to the pass, but the western portion of 

 its " Hureoles " abut on the outlying boulders of the 

 mountain ranges In the very entrance to the pass there 

 is faintly seen a semi-circular rampart, like an almost 

 submerged Cassini whose eastern half has been pressed 

 down and covered over by the invading "aureoles" of 

 Autolvcus. On the western side, Linne preserves the 

 same distance from the pass that Autol\cus does on the 

 east and here again we seem to see, but more faintly still, 

 the indications of an early ringed plain almost stamped 

 out by the influence of Linne. This region is the more 

 interesting from the susi-iicions of change in it since it was 

 observed by Eiccioli. 



Only a portion of the Mare Imbrium is seen in the 

 photograph, that including the Palus Putredinis and the 



